• The Menemen!
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    1 month ago

    To understand how unhinged our society is one only needs to understand how we constantly improve our technology, but don’t use it to improve us as a society.

    • @[email protected]
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      231 month ago

      Primitive metallurgy was used to create weapons for millennia before it became commonly used for cookware. Technology has always been primarily used as vector for human beings to control and dominate one another, rather than to assist/improve society.

      • The Menemen!
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        321 month ago

        Didn’t say we used to be better. We’ve always been a shitshow.

        • @[email protected]
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          131 month ago

          Agreed. It just seems more absurd now because of the contrast between our advanced technology and our primitive sociopolitical structures.

          • @ThrowawaySobriquet
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            91 month ago

            Oh man, this is a thing I wish more people understood. The day of the first real human flight and the day a human being walked on ground that wasn’t earth only have about a 66 year gap. A lot of old folks who watched the moon landing saw the invention and proliferation of the airplane in their lifetime.

            However, the engrams and algorithms that make up the human mind have been in constant development for tens of thousands of years. Far, far longer if you want to count previous versions that led up to what we’re packing. A popular trope in some older fiction was to displace prehistoric critters into the modern world and detail the chaos. But that’s us. We’re it. We’re the cavemen in a world of microscopic circuit boards.

            Our achievements have far outpaced our ability to constrain them. Like, when we discovered radiation, we started putting that shit in everything. Fucking toothpaste. And sure, we learn, we improve, we adapt. Humans are exceptionally good at that. But it just seems to me as it has seemed to far bigger minds than my own that we’re still banging rocks together and fighting over resources, it’s just now the rocks have a faint glow and the resources are measured in GDP

      • @[email protected]
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        51 month ago

        To be fair, that was back when wildlife was much more of a threat. And probably also a lot more risk of criminals or other bandits. Making a weapon to protect your tribe is not really in the same ball park as this.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 month ago

          I see your point, but I would argue that in a world with nuclear weapons, climate change, and all sorts of shit that seems to be an existential risk, plus the media barrage, people today aren’t exactly feeling safe or comfortable. Hence the desperate hoarding of resources and brutal competition.

      • @Dasnap
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        21 month ago

        deleted by creator

    • @Telodzrum
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      -51 month ago

      Do you want ads or do you want to pay for quality media?

      • @[email protected]
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        81 month ago

        I want to read articles of interest to me easily. Subscriptions to print /text media sources often don’t work out on a value analysis though. The best way to consume media is through specialty sources now. I want the Atlantic for tech articles, another source for fashion, another for sports, and an occasional glance at NYT or the post for key articles. I don’t want to lock myself into a source for subscription. My intrest in this article is worth about 6 seconds of my time to access, about three or four non obnoxious ads, or about 7 cents as an instantaneous micropayment. Exceed any of those limits and I walk away never to return to it. I’m guessing a lot of readers fall somewhere in that range of tolerance. Until micropayments are a thing I think text media like this actually still make sense for ad. Support really. Will block it as much as I can, and I won’t tolerate anything too obnoxious, but the model more or less makes sense. Fuck the paywall - Im surprised that model is sustainable, i walk away instantly with that.

        • classic
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          51 month ago

          Oh man, I wish we had that, paying a few pennies per article. Way prefer that to an ad

        • @[email protected]
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          21 month ago

          Yup, I’d pay if there was a nice micro payment option. I’d put $X into my browser each month and then websites can get a small payment based on what I read. Ask me the first time to authorize payments for a site in a certain range, and then ask again if you need more than the for some content.

          That is much more preferable to ads or a subscription. Until that happens, my ad blocker is staying on and I’m avoiding paywalls.

      • @Desistance
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        -31 month ago

        Quality media does not exist.

  • @[email protected]
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    761 month ago

    Is it any wonder why we pirate and adblock. Im not going to embrace hostility, im going to fight fire with fire. Every time.

  • @Boozilla
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    581 month ago

    Reminds me of those gas stations that play commercials at the pumps. More and more of them are disabling the mute buttons. I only stop at stations with the TV-free pumps now.

    • @TheGrandNagus
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      231 month ago

      There are fuel pumps that show ads? Where do you live? That’s crazy to me

      • @[email protected]
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        251 month ago

        American thing

        Not in my town, but they’re not hard to find literally anywhere in the US

      • @[email protected]
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        231 month ago

        I just want to emphasize how loud these can be for the unfamiliar as well. Like blaring into your ear while you pump. Also, some of the really loud ones are not synced pump to pump so you’ll get this shouting weird echo while at the pump. I think Tesla probably gave the gas stations a grant to put these things in. It seriously has contributed toward my motivation to go go electric for next car.

        • @[email protected]
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          91 month ago

          I wouldn’t have believed that if you hadn’t expanded upon it a little. Right out of a dystopian movie

        • @Plopp
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          21 month ago

          Someone think of those poor speakers out there in the cold and spray some expanding foam into the speaker grills.

      • @EntropyPure
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        81 month ago

        I think it’s an US thing. Have yet to encounter something like that in Europe.

    • @Ultragigagigantic
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      151 month ago

      "People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.

      You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

      Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

      You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs."

      – Banksy

      • @[email protected]
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        71 month ago

        Just spam all the buttons as fast as possible. I usually can seem to softlock the display but the transaction old school display still works properly.

        • @[email protected]
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          101 month ago

          hahahaha enshittification working against itself ! the future really is poorly performing code sitting on top of antisocial designs. What a timeline

      • @Boozilla
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        41 month ago

        They used to let you mute them. But everyone started doing it, so of course they disabled it. Sometimes you can get into the admin menu with the right combo of button presses. I don’t recommend trying this, as most stations have multiple security cameras and your locale might have draconian laws about tampering.

        • @mPony
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          61 month ago

          wait, take a breath, do you think someone’s going to get arrested for trying to turn off advertising?

          I know America is ever-sliding into Dystopia but that just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

          • @MrPoopbutt
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            111 month ago

            The law doesn’t have to make sense to be enforceable.

          • @Boozilla
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            41 month ago

            If you harm a poor person, you’re generally OK. If you harm a wealthy person or corporation, you’re fucked.

          • @CrazyLikeGollum
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            11 month ago

            Pretty sure you’d run afoul of some kind of federal cyber crime law if you did that.

    • @[email protected]
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      61 month ago

      One of these days I’m going to find out where they hide those speakers and when I do I’m bringing an icepick to the pump.

  • @GamingChairModel
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    461 month ago

    I’m glad that The Atlantic is covering this issue. Nothing groundbreaking here for anyone who follows these issues, but the Atlantic’s audience overlaps a lot with actual policymakers and their staffs. The tech companies don’t want to be regulated by the government, so coverage by these types of publications may be a good starting point for reform (whether voluntary or regulated).

  • Johanno
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    1 month ago

    The end is here. You will love not owning your TV and it’s sending ads directly into your brain.

    Your phone will make calls without you and your PC will do the work for you so can watch more ads.

    • @[email protected]
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      181 month ago

      I’m one of the crazy people who spent 4 grand on a 85 inch dumb display meant for stores to use as digital signage. Honestly a great decision. It’s no home theater display but damn if it isn’t just as good as any smart tv I’ve seen. I just have it hooked to a raspberry pi running librelec.

      • @PalmTreeIsBestTree
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        41 month ago

        I just don’t hook mine up to the Internet and disable all the ad and tracking stuff on my LG, but at least yours will probably last 10+ years.

        • @TheGrandNagus
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          111 month ago

          Unfortunately some modern TVs do stuff like constantly pester you to connect to the internet, or have offline ads. There have even been trials of Amazon-powered TVs connecting to nearby Echo devices and gaining internet connectivity that way.

        • @[email protected]
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          31 month ago

          That was kinda the idea. We just moved and I wanted to get something set up that I wouldn’t have to worry about for at least a decade.

          • @PalmTreeIsBestTree
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            11 month ago

            My parents’ Sharp has lasted more than 10 years and it’s even a smart tv, but it’s probably way more dumb than the current ones since it could only do Netflix.

    • Refurbished Refurbisher
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      131 month ago

      Rooting an Android TV gets you there, plus you get a TV that you actually own. It’s super niche and difficult to do, though. Hard to find info on which TVs can be rooted.

      • @[email protected]
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        91 month ago

        Is any of that information centralised anywhere? I still have and love my old dumb TV, but I want to be prepared for when I am inevitably dragged in to the “smart” era.

    • @[email protected]
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      121 month ago

      I use video projectors. Many of them, typically the better ones do not have any built-in smarts requiring an Internet connection.

      In general, smart devices are a major security risk, and need to be firewalled off.

      • @[email protected]
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        81 month ago

        There really needs to be laws requiring any smart device to have, like, 20 years of security patches, customer support and liability if anything goes wrong. If they want to place a device, that they insist needs internet access, in my home, they need to, at the very least, pay their way.

      • The Menemen!
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        1 month ago

        Wouldn’t that basically just be the same as “deleting the wifi password from the TV”?

        • @[email protected]
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          91 month ago

          Hopefully they won’t start standardizing TV’s that have to phone home periodically and if they are denied this for long enough, refuse to work until they’ve established a connection to their servers. I’m not aware of anything that does this but it’s definitely what will start happening if enough people disable network connectivity to circumvent smart features. This wouldn’t worry me too much since I’d likely want to use the device as just a display anyway and plug something useful in to the HDMI but if the whole machine is somehow tied up in these sophisticated operating systems, what if they just disable HDMI until they get their way?

        • @[email protected]
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          41 month ago

          My TV has never been near any Internet connection. The source button on the remote has been clicked once, the color settings has been changed once. The only button in regular use is the on/off button. This is the way.

    • Arghblarg
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      71 month ago

      You can, but now it’s called “a big monitor and your own server with a personal media library”.

    • @[email protected]
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      31 month ago

      Bought an LG A2 OLED, I have never hooked it up to the Internet and I love it. I don’t use any smart functionality just a PC

    • @[email protected]
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      21 month ago

      We managed to pick up some off newegg.ca as recently as a couple of years ago (RCA branded). Only 32-inch panels, though, so if you’re looking for a living room centerpiece, you’re better off going the digital signage route.

  • @[email protected]
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    271 month ago

    Sorry but this article is just false and misleading.

    The company currently has no ability to see what users might be doing when they switch away from its proprietary streaming platform. This is apparently a problem, in that Roku is missing monetization opportunities!

    Now look here.

    https://lemmy.world/post/9840946

    Look at the logo in the bottom right.

    Roku is already doing this and has been since last year. This is not a threat. It is a promise to shareholders and advertisers, and they have already fulfilled it.

    • @douglasg14b
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      1 month ago

      I fail to see the claim that the article is false and misleading?

      It sounds like what it states is what it is. Replace the phrase “currently has” with “didn’t” and your issue evaporates.

      Which seems like unfair criticism given that the present or past tensing of an article’s statements are dependent on when it was written and is a rather fluid and interpretable thing. It’s a reasonable expectation that readers can understand and adjust their perspective of past vs present tense without failing to understand what the article is conveying…

      Especially to such a degree where the confusion from the past tense versus present tense of a statement is great enough to be considered “false and misleading”…

  • @[email protected]
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    31 month ago

    Ehhh, it’s not like I’d actually do it, but the thought of doing it while I’m pumping gas gives me warm fuzzy feelings inside.